Tag: bbq classes

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The Men and Women behind UK BBQ – Natalie Clifton – I.O. Shen Knives

1.    What got you into BBQ’ng?
My Dad! He was a racing driver and I spent my childhood in the pits and paddocks of race tracks around the UK. BBQ was how we ate every single meal. Mostly quick and easy food for the driver and the engineers. I learnt at a young age the art of cooking bacon over coals and feeding people – and that made me incredibly happy!  This then morphed to experimental cooking over fire – which eventually lead to my ultimate passion for cooking over flame and embracing cuisines from the world with our F1 Cooks.

2.    How many BBQ’s do you have at home and what is your favourite method of cooking?
Josh and I have over 10 BBQ’s including Weber grills, Savage fire cage, Big Joe 3, Baby Joe, Hellrazr & Roccbox.  I love them all for different reasons.

3.    What is your favourite piece of BBQ equipment? This can be a BBQ or an accessory and we want to know why.
I think it would have to be the rotisserie attachment to the Big Joe 3 and the Savage Cage. Simply because any piece of meat is transformed when it’s spun. It makes everything so tender and I love the knarly crispy crust or skin which inevitably comes with this type of cooking. Plus – if your BBQ is set correctly with deflection plates etc, it’s almost a set and forget!

4.    What was the best BBQ food you have ever eaten?
WOW!! Tough question!! I think that any BBQ food can be elevated when you’re in good company and the weather is nice. For me it’s the atmosphere just as much as the food.

5.    Tell us about your worst BBQ disaster?
I tried my hand at squid…the photos looked fantastic but it was an epic fail!!  I definitely need to work on that one!

6.    Name a dish you have never cooked but would love to try?
There are 2…..Baked Alaska. I’ve actually never had it in my 49 years on this planet but the thought of baking icecream blows my mind!!  2nd is chocolate gravy. This comes from the film chocolat, when Juilette Bonoche serves a banquet with roast chicken as the centerpiece and served with chocolate gravy.

These 2 are now on my hit list to make in 2023!

7.    Who is the person you would most like to cook with?
I cook with my favorite person in the world every day….Josh and I make almost every meal a date night.  Some nights it takes HOURS to make something which should take 2. But when the music is at high volume and there are no time pressures, cooking is the journey…not the destination.

8.    What is your favourite song to cook to?
Anything I can dance to!

9.    Best toppings for a BBQ burger?
Cheese, cheese and more cheese!  Beer can burgers stuffed with Montaray Jack, cheddar and blue are my absolute faves.

10.   What’s your favourite non-BBQ food?
Mediterranean and Persian side dishes….. Hummus, tzatziki and anything tapas.

11.   What is your favourite dish from your book?
Shawarma by Sabrina Ghayour.  In fact – anything from Sabrina has my vote.

Link to Social Media

Instagram  @ioshenknives     Facebook   ioshen      Twitter @IOShenknives

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Genevieve Taylor – The Men and Women behind UK BBQ

One of the UK’s leading live fire and BBQ experts, Genevieve Taylor is the author of eleven cookery books including the bestselling SEARED: The ultimate guide to barbecuing meat,  CHARRED, a complete guide to vegetarian BBQ, Foolproof BBQ, The Ultimate Wood-fired Oven Cook book, How to Eat Outside and Master Chef Street Food of the World. A proud omnivore, Genevieve is on a mission to prove that great BBQ isn’t just about Man vs. Meat.

Genevieve runs the Bristol Fire School – a cookery school dedicated to all things FIRE – @Bristol_Fire_School

When she’s not cooking over an open fire, Genevieve can usually be found outside walking her dogs in the woods, growing a few good things to eat on her allotment and listening to rather a lot of music. She is also a very part time ceramicist with a little studio/office/girl cave at the top of her Bristol garden.

  1. What got you into BBQ’ng?

When my children were small, I quickly realised how boring it is feeding them three times a day, both the kids and I were happier outside and I have been cooking outside ever since. My mum was a single mum and when I was young, I used to help her and have been cooking since I was small.

  1. How many BBQ’s do you have at home and what is your favourite method of cooking?

3 Weber Kettles, 4 KJ’s an Ox Grill, a Drumbeque, 3 Fire Pits, a Weber smoke fire, 2 Ox Grill Trompos, a built in stone bbq, a Gozeny Dome and some portable ones (a Go-anywhere, a Smoky Joe and a Thuros). But I run Bristol Fire School from the house.  I am a big fan of Weber kettles and have written all my books on those as if the recipe works on there it will work on bbq’s that most people have. They can Smoke or Grill.

  1. What is your favourite piece of BBQ equipment? This can be a BBQ or an accessory and we want to know why.

My favourite bit of equipment is my Thermapen I wouldn’t cook meat without it. It makes sure your meat is perfectly cooked and juicy.

  1. What was the best BBQ food you have ever eaten?

For me food is a time and a place, it’s a memory, I recently spent 20hrs cooking BBQ (Brisket) for my husband’s birthday and then we had people round. That was one of the best days. Apart from that the best BBQ I have had is in Texas.

  1. Tell us about your worst BBQ disaster?

I had nine people at a Kamado Joe Fireschool and was cooking Yorkshire Puddings. I forgot about them and when I remembered they were completely black and looked like charcoal. I like to push myself and multi task but it doesn’t always work

  1. Name a dish you have never cooked but would love to try?

I would love to dig a hole, build a pit and cook a whole pig

  1. Who is the person you would most like to cook with?

With regards to a chef/Author it would have to be Ottolenghi as I love the layering of flavours. I do have to say though that I love cooking with people who have visited the Bristol Fire School and have cooked using my books. It brings a connection and reality to it.

  1. What is your favourite song to cook to?

I don’t have a favourite song as I am a huge fan of music and what I will listen to depends on my mood. If its cold and wet I listen to Reggie, if I am tired its electronic and I love finding new music.

  1. Best toppings for a BBQ burger?

It has to be a classic Bacon and Cheese burger with hot sauce

  1. What’s your favourite non-BBQ food?

No such thing in our house anything can be cooked on the BBQ, I have even cooked Pavlova and I regularly bake on the BBQ.

  1. What is your favourite dish from your book?

Now that’s a hard one, I like them all although some get cooked more than others.

There is a sweetcorn salad from the Wood Fired Oven Cookbook that regularly makes an appearance, as does the carrot salad in charred. I believe that a bbq should be like a meal indoors and not have just five types of meat. In my most recent book, Seared there is a lovely sesame and ginger chicken

Web Site – https://www.genevievetaylor.co.uk/

Fire School – https://www.genevievetaylor.co.uk/bristol-fire-school

Books – Amazon Books

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The Men and Women behind UK BBQ – Sam Evans and Shauna Guinn

Barbecue is a serious business. And for anyone who thought barbecue was about big, bearded blokes toiling over hot coals, think again: the Hang Fire girls are the real experts.

In 2012 Sam and Shauna ditched their jobs and embarked on a 6-month road trip around the best barbecue joints in the southern United States. From Texas to Tallahassee, they learned the insider secrets of what makes barbecue great, were captivated by the thrill of smoke and fire, and back home in Cardiff they set out their meat manifesto in the form of Hang Fire Smokehouse.

Following the restaurant Sam and Shauna are regulars on TV in such programmes as Sam and Shauna’s Big Cook.

Hang Fire’s approach is simple: get the best ingredients, cook them low ‘n’ slow, and tuck in.

  1. What got you into BBQ’ng?
    As keen cooks, we’ve always been backyard BBQ’ers, albeit fairweather ones and mainly cooked out in the Summer. But really it’s our love of Americana, bluegrass and food from the deep south (and Dolly Parton!) that inspired us to be able to potentially do this for a living and so we headed to States for 6 months in 2013 to learn all about the culture of BBQ. We were also inspired by Neil Rankin, Tom Adams and Jamie Berger. They had the Pitt Cue food truck on the Southbank in 2011-2012 and their BBQ (and picklebacks) were mind-blowing. They had a huge part in inspiring the creative culinary aspect to Hang Fire.
  1. How many BBQ’s do you have at home and what is your favourite method of cooking?
    We’ve tended to build our own BBQ’s as you may have seen from our BBCTV show Sam & Shauna’s Big Cookout. But right now, there may be half a dozen or so different styles and types of BBQs lurking about in the garden! The more unusual ones are the wee Flat Dog from Pro Q (always in the boot of our car with a bag of charcoal ready for a guerrilla BBQ) and we also love our Ascua Parilla from Blackbox. Huge fans of beautiful, and considered, engineering in BBQs.
  1. What is your favourite piece of BBQ equipment? This can be a BBQ or an accessory and we want to know why.
    Surely it has to be a really good pair of ‘Texas maracas’ aka BBQ tongs. So called because you always have to click them thrice when you pick them up! We’re also a bit late to the party, but our minds have been blown away by the ingenuity of the Meater. Why didn’t we have a dozen of these when we had our restaurant?!
  1. What was the best BBQ food you have ever eaten?
    Asides from what Pitt Cue were doing back when, it was probably everything we ate at Franklin BBQ in Austin. On our travels in the States, we ate at something like 70-80 BBQ joints; from streetfood to restaurants. We kissed (ate?) a lot of frogs in in order to find the Prince of BBQ, Aaron Franklin. It really was transcendent. Incredibly delicate smoke flavour, the most tender meats and the seasoning sat back to let the quality of the meat sing out.
  1. Tell us about your worst BBQ disaster?
    This is an easy one to remember as it was so painful. Just when we started Hang Fire, I was training my chefs on slow and low. We filled a smoker with around £250 of thick-cut St Louis ribs for a very low temp overnight smoke so they could be finished in the morning for lunch time service. We had a grease fire in the smoker overnight and we came in to every single rib looking like a petrified fossil. Black, burned and you could crush them to dust with a light squeeze. We all learned a lot about keeping your smoker cooking chambers CLEAN!
  1. Name a dish you have never cooked but would love to try?
    Without wanting to sound churlish, there probably isn’t a dish we’ve had the desire to cook and haven’t yet (Sam can be very impulsive and suddenly show up with a bunch of ingredients and say ‘we’re cooking this today!’). However, there are definitely people we’d like to cook with and places we’d like to cook in.
  1. Who is the person you would most like to cook with?
    We had the privilege to meet Miss Tootsie of Snows BBQ while we were in the States but would love a chance to cook with her. In fact we would love to cook with any of our great BBQ heroines like Desiree Robinson, Melissa Cookston, Amy Mills, Leanne Whippen and Danielle Bennett.
  1. What is your favourite song to cook to?
    Not sure there is one song this pair of musos could choose. But a good bluegrass, country playlist isn’t very far away when we’re lighting the coals. Something up beat with a story and music with history always inspires us when we cook.
  1. Best toppings for a BBQ burger?
    For us an Oklahoma style pattie with American cheese and crispy (streaky) bacon will always be our go to. Oooh, can we add some of Dublin’s Pitt Bros bacon jam too?
  1. What’s your favourite non-BBQ food?
    We cook A LOT of Asian food at home. North to southern Indian, Thai, all sorts of Chinese food, tons of Indian food. We eat a lot of vegetarian and seafood too.
  1. What is your favourite dish from your book?
    C’mon, it’s like asking a mother to pick her favourite child! They’re all amazing to us as they all come with a story of how we learned it and when we tried it and the people we met. It really does chronicle our time in the States through food and hopefully a road map for anyone wanting to make the same pilgrimage.

Link to book

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hang-Fire-Cookbook-Adventures in America

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam & Shauna of Hang Fire®

www.samandshauna.com

 

Watch Season 3 of Sam & Shauna’s Big Cook Out on BBC IPlayer
CLICK HERE

Watch Sam and Shauna’s TEDx Talk on Pop Ups
CLICK HERE

Watch Sam & Shauna cook in Gower Salt Marshes
CLICK HERE

Twitter – @hangfirebbq  @samandshauna

Instagram – @hangfirebbq   @samandshaunaofficial

FB – @TheHangFire 

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The Men and Women behind UK BBQ – DJ BBQ AKA Christian Stevenson

DJ BBQ (aka Christian Stevenson) is a live fire chef and a leading name in the world of BBQ. After a successful broadcasting career fronting shows for MTV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 (including award-winning Rad), he harnessed his passion for cooking over fire and now has his own YouTube channel with more than 175K subscribers (he’s also a regular big-hitter on Jamie Oliver’s FoodTube). DJ BBQ stars in and hosts festivals including Meatopia, The Big Feastival, Camp Bestival, Grilltopia and The Big Grill. He is a chef on Food.com, and has contributed to This Morning, FHM, Independent, Daily Mail and the Chris Evans Breakfast Show among many others. He has a BBQ spice rub range with US brand Spiceology, and his brand affiliations include Hellmann’s, Renault, B&Q and Kid Rock’s American Bad Ass Grill.

  1. What got you into BBQ’ng?
    I come from the Mid-West in America, my dad and grandfather cooked BBQ. IOWA is cattle and corn country and we had steamed corn nearly every night. BBQ was traditionally cheaper cuts of meat, my mum and dad divorced when I was in year 2 and I shuttled back and forth between them. Basically, my dad was a solo dad raising 2 kids, so he asked me to help with the cooking. He cooked outside and my mum cooked inside. I also got taught some great dishes by my grandparents such as Meatloaf and Tomato Pie
  1. How many BBQ’s do you have at home and what is your favourite method of cooking?
    I only have 3 grills at home 2 Weber 57cm Kettles and a Pit Barrel Kamado. I have 3 smokers in storage that I use for festivals. My favourite bbq to cook on is Weber as that’s where I started, I used a 47cm Kettle for a long time before I upgraded. Kamados are too expensive for many and can take a while to come up to temp.
  1. What is your favourite piece of BBQ equipment? This can be a BBQ or an accessory and we want to know why.
    I use my Weber Tongs for most things they are just very versatile.
  1. What was the best BBQ food you have ever eaten?
    The BBQ food that surprised me the most was at a cattle herding station barn in Brazil where the gauchos had their coffee and food. I was travelling with Giles Coren and Monica Galetti and we had lamb skewered on big swords with pools of fat dripping onto the hot coals. It was easily the best lamb ribs I have had.
  1. Tell us about your worst BBQ disaster?
    When I first started cooking, I was cooking Pulled Pork on a langman 36 and I kept checking the food. As they say “If your looking its not cooking” It took a while!
  1. Name a dish you have never cooked but would love to try?
    I would love to try Marilyn Muskrat. When I was snowboarding in Ecuador in the 1990’s they ate guinea pig. I was always curious.
  1. Who is the person you would most like to cook with?
    When at home I love cooking with my sons. I want to pass down to them an enthusiasm for BBQ in the same way my dad and grandfather did to me. When I am cooking at Festivals I love cooking with T-Bone Chops, Sam Jones and Dave Jennings. It’s such a blast!
  1. What is your favourite song to cook to?
    I haven’t got one favourite song. If cooking with T-Bone Chops its always Rock, if at festivals its Funk and Soul or Hip Hop, when at home I like Indie or Alternative and I love my mix tapes
  1. Best toppings for a BBQ burger?
    For myself my favourite topping is caramelised onion and mushroom. My go to cook for others is an Oklahoma burger.
  1. What’s your favourite non-BBQ food?
    Everything is BBQ Food, LOL. No if I am out to eat, I like a curry or South East Asian Food
  2. What is your favourite dish from the new book?
    Maple Bacon Lardy Cake, my friends 2 year old couldn’t get enough of it, or my Aunts Goulash Recipe

The Book is available here :- DJ BBQ’s Backyard Baking

 

 

 

 

 

 


DJ BBQ Books – Amazon Books

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The Men and Women behind UK BBQ – Adam Johnson Head Development Chef for Raymond Blanc

1. What got you into BBQ’ing?
Sheer love of food and cooking for your friends and family. Plus you cant beat the smell of smoke and cooking juices over hot coals…..especially with a bottle of home brew :0)

2. How many BBQ’s do you have at home?
One weber kettle, weber smokey mountain (small one) and a £10 bucket bbq from the supermarket

3. Favourite piece of BBQ equipment.
Chimney starter

4. Worst BBQ disaster?
Cooking my first beef brisket…….I didnt order USDA standard and it ended up like a piece of beef jerky

5. A dish you’ve never cooked but would love to try?
Whole Ox roasted on a Wagon wheel spit

6. Best BBQ food you ever ate?
Burnt Ends by Dave Pynt in Singapore

7. Person you would most like to cook with?
Lennox Hastie, Firedoor, Surrey hills NSW, Australia.
We worked together at Le Manoir when I first started and he has gone on to have one of the best restaurants in the world cooking on only wood fire.

8. Favourite song to cook too?
Anything cheesy

9. Best toppings for a BBQ burger?
Homemade chilli sauce, fresh pickled onions…..as well as all the usual suspects.

10. What’s your favourite non-BBQ food guilty pleasure?
Bought Chicken and Mayonnaise sandwiches

Link to cook school  https://www.belmond.com/hotels/europe/uk/oxfordshire/belmond-le-manoir-aux-quat-saisons/cookery-school

 

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The Men and Women behind UK BBQ – Jackie Weight

Jackie Weight was the first and to date only non-American to win the coveted overall Grand Champion Title at the Jack Daniels Invitational BBQ Competition (2004) in Lynchburg, Tennessee. She now runs BBQ Workshop, an independent BBQ Cookery School in Kent where she enjoys sharing her love of barbecue.

1. What got you into BBQ’ng?
I’ve had a love of cooking since childhood, so cooking outdoors was a natural progression, that and a fascination for fire!

2. How many BBQ’s do you have at home and what is your favourite method of cooking?
Err, I may have to plead the 5th on that one .. don’t tell anyone but I have around 21 at last count. I can’t narrow down my favourite way of cooking, but I love the indirect low and slow cook that my Traeger Pellet Grills give me as well as cooking indirect and searing on my Kamado, it really depends on what I’m cooking.

3. What is your favourite piece of BBQ equipment? This can be a BBQ or an accessory and we want to know why.
It’s difficult to narrow it down to just one, but I couldn’t live without my Thermapens, food probes are so important as nobody can tell the internal temperature of food by sight! I run a BBQ School and advise everyone who comes to buy a food probe.

4. What was the best BBQ food you have ever eaten?
That’s easy! The best BBQ Food I’ve eaten is with friends at BBQ Competitions mainly in America … the relaxed evening cookout before everything goes mental.

5. Tell us about your worst BBQ disaster?
Almost setting fire to a 12th century Tythe Barn during a catering event years ago! I left my cooker in the ‘capable hands’ of my late husband only to come back and find that he had let things get a little too Hot!

6. Name a dish you have never cooked but would love to try?
I’ve never cooked true Wagyu Beef and would love to try it one day, however sometimes you have to weigh up cost versus reality.

7. Who is the person you would most like to cook with?
I have cooked informally for the late Michel Roux in his back garden and was quite surprised when Heston Blumenthal and Alain Roux turned up too. These days I enjoy cooking with the people that come to my BBQ School … but if James Martin invited me around to cook with him, I wouldn’t say no!

8. What is your favourite song to cook to?
Anything from Queen is a good start for me as it drowns out my singing!

9. Best toppings for a BBQ burger?
Slow cooked caramelised red onion and decent ‘melty’ cheese

10. What’s your favourite non-BBQ food guilty pleasure?
I absolutely love to bake, so anything that involves cake!

For more information visit  Jackie’s website at – www.bbqworkshop.co.uk

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The Men and Women behind UK BBQ – Richard Holden BBQ

Richard Holden BBQ is on a mission to bring brilliant barbecuing skills to more people across the UK. He travels  the country leading live product demonstrations, hosting bespoke hands-on masterclasses and catering for private events, with the aim of educating and inspiring others to get creative with food and give barbecuing a go themselves.

1. What got you into BBQ’ing?
I had my eyes opened to home barbecue when I first had roasted meats and vegetables cooked outside. It was around 2004, I’d just moved to Canada and with the stonking hot summers they get out there my sister was buying all the barbecue cookbooks she could get her hands on and fast became a BBQ Ninja!!
I started to take barbecuing seriously in 2012 when I took a job working for Weber as an in-house chef. I began travelling the UK and Ireland with their amazing Land Rover and Airstream exhibition unit hosting mini masterclasses at retailer locations and big food shows such as CarFest, Grillstock and Jamie Oliver’s BigFeastival. I loved how people gather around the barbecue and along with creating great food together the barbecue inspires newly treasured memories and life moments!

2. How many BBQ’s do you have at home and what is your favourite method of cooking?
HAHA At last count I had 15 barbecues of various descriptions. These are working grills and go on the road with me to the events I host. There are charcoal, gas and pellet barbecues as well as dedicated smokers and portable styles in there too.
My favourite method for cooking has to be roasting as it opens up the endless possibilities of what you can cook on your barbecue. Roasting also allows the barbecue to take the strain while you have time on your hands to do other things be it things around the house or actually catching-up with the people you invite to your home.

3. What is your favourite piece of BBQ equipment? This can be a BBQ or an accessory and we want to know why.
In the same way as The Complete Work of Shakespeare and A Religious Book are automatically given in Desert Island Discs I’m going to assume we already have a chimney starter, a good toolset, IO Shen knives and a Thermapen!!
This being the case I would have to say my cast iron Dutch oven is something I could not be without. One of the best things about cooking on a barbecue is that for grilling and roasting you don’t really need anything to put the food on like you would in the kitchen as food goes straight on the cooking grate. This is fantastic when it comes to washing up, but there are times in the year where I want to be able to cook something outside the norm. Chilli con carne on bonfire night or moules mariniere with crusty bread and a glass of white on a warm summer evening are just 2 dishes that instantly spring to mind. The Dutch oven is in my Top 10 pieces of barbecue kit for sure!

4. What was the best BBQ food you have ever eaten?
I’ve been lucky enough to judge twice at the Jack Daniel’s International BBQ Championships so it goes without saying I’ve eaten some of the best barbecue food in the world.
The other worthy mention though has to be the first time I ever ate low ‘n’ slow brisket! It was July 1997, I was visiting Canada with my parents for the first time and we were at the Calgary Stampede (google it!). As we walked around the park grounds I caught the very distinctive aroma I’d later come to know as hickory wood smoke. This was a taste revalation and if I ever think of hickory smoked brisket now I’m straight back at the Stampede that summer; Fantastic!

5. Tell us about your worst BBQ disaster?
Easy! Grillstock Bristol 2014. I was heading up the weekends 30-minute demos in the Weber marquee and someone asked me a thought provoking question that got me off topic! My school reports always said “easily distracted” so I went in feet first and forgot what I was supposed to be doing. What I was actually cooking was a Tarte Tatin, which had had the puff pastry lid put on and was on the barbecue to bake off. Mid conversation someone asked if the barbecue behind me was supposed to be smoking. I said it wasn’t possible as I was just “baking” but true enough when I turned around I saw heavy black smoke coming from the grill. I’d baked it too far long and not only had the pastry “over-baked” but the caramel in the bottom of the dish had burnt to smithereens.
I don’t believe in hiding your mistakes as they can show that if you take your eye off the ball, as had happened in this case, anyone can burn something! I wanted to post a picture of the charred remains but was told by someone higher than me that the photo should go nowhere near the internet, which means you now have an exclusive!! ?

6. Name a dish you have never cooked but would love to try?
I’m dying to get my own house to be able to have space for an Asado and cook a butterflied lamb or side of beef on it! I’ve seen it done at events like Meatopia and spoken with people about it but haven’t had the opportunity or space to do it for myself yet.

7. Who is the person you would most like to cook with?
Australian cook and food write Donna Hay. There have been so many influences for me from Australia in the last year and Donna is just one of the people I’ve discovered along the way. Her food and knowledge are vast and to cook with her while discovering Aussie cuisine would be something pretty cool!

8. What is your favourite song to cook to?
I have music playing most of the day so this is tough but “I Gotta Feeling” by The Black Eyed Peas will always remind me of a sailing trip I took around the Whitsunday Islands in 2010. In my mind it’s tropical blue waters, hot sunny days and barbecues off the back of the boat whenever I hear this song!

9. Best toppings for a BBQ burger?
I like to keep it classic with cheese, grilled streaky bacon, tomato and sliced avocado.

10. What’s your favourite non-BBQ food guilty pleasure?
I scream, You scream, We all scream for Ice Cream! I love it in all its’ glorious forms and over the summer months you may find the odd Magnum wrapper in the drivers’ door pocket of my van…….. lol

For more information visit https://www.richardholdenbbq.co.uk/

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The Men and Women behind UK BBQ – Emma Millest – Bunch of Swines

Emma is the prettier half of the competition team Bunch of Swines, (Sorry Ed) they have been competing and winning in competitions all round Europe and America in recent years. Emma was also a competitor on ITV’s UK BBQ Champ in 2015

1. What got you into BBQ’ng?
YouTube found some Texas guys cooking big chunks of meat on a Webber kettle and thought I can do that.

2. How many BBQ’s do you have at home and what is your favourite method of cooking?
Where do I start…at home we currently have a Yoder pellet cooker, a PK grill, a UDS and a Webber kettle. However, at our lockup we have a Jambo (stick burner), 4 gateway smokers, 2 WSM, 1 Backwards cabinet smoker, 1 meadow creek and several Kettles and much much more. My favourite method of cooking is hot and fast over a mixture of wood and charcoal.

3. What is your favourite piece of BBQ equipment? This can be a BBQ or an accessory and we want to know why.
For me it’s the Thermaq with mini needles are so small that they do not leave any needle marks in the meat and the leads are easy to wrap in tinfoil too. Also, and almost just as important my slippers! (especially when cooking competition, you are constantly on your feet and must be comfortable.)

4. What was the best BBQ food you have ever eaten?
At the American Royal 6 years ago, I was given a slice of brisket from an American team called Big T’s crew and it was the best brisket I have ever tasted. He then went on to win team of the year in brisket that year.

5. Tell us about your worst BBQ disaster? My BBQ disaster was cooking mussel, the mussels overcook really quickly and exploded across the room. They can get some serious air distance!

6. Name a dish you have never cooked but would love to try?
I would love to learn how to cook Dim sum.

7. Who is the person you would most like to cook with?
It would have to be my partner in crime Edward Gash, I know its soppy.

8. What is your favourite song to cook to?
Anything that has a good beat, normally drum and base.

9. Best toppings for a BBQ burger? Caramelised red onion and blue cheese.

10. What’s your favourite non-BBQ food guilty pleasure? Chinese food seaweed and salt and pepper squid.